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The Flow of Battle

Welcome back everyone! This latest go-round in development has seen us focusing on the systems behind the systems - battle animation timing and effects, those pernicious status effects that can throw a wrench in your best plans, and unit animations.

In other words, the backbone behind everything!

So let's jump in with a look at some new battle animations:

Battle Timing

Every fight is made up of a slew of systems running in the background, from unit editors, equipment and stat systems, animation systems, and many more. We've been working on all of these, toying with the timing of attack animations and skill animations, like Poncho's powerful Smashing Shank:

And different skills have different effects, all which require precise timing on the animation side, like the Ranger's crossbow attack, which lacks the height advantages of a bow, but makes up for it in range and armor piercing ability:

Some encounters, like the classic dodge and counter below, require even more precise iterations on the animations and systems running in the background. This Kitsune with the blind status effect has even less chance of hitting, but little does he know that our Cavalier's shield lessens those odds even more.

Add in the counter attack reaction skill, and this enemy Kitsune never stood a chance. Which is honestly super sad because he's really cute.

I Don't Feel So Good...

Status effects - the good, the bad, and the ugly! They pose an interesting design challenge, especially as they begin to stack on your troops. As we've been designing visuals, we've also been deciding how best to visualize the callouts for status updates, as you can see below:

When only a limited number of afflictions apply to your characters, we'll have a standard single callout like these above, or below in a typical battlefield example:

This is to keep the information as clean as possible, while still having an at-a-glance view of effects.

But what if a soldier has more than five afflictions, both good and bad? Well in that circumstance, we're toying with a two-callout system, with positive effects in the upper right, and negative effects in the bottom left as seen below:

Of course, what good are callouts if you're not sure what each symbol represents? There will be a repository in-game of all status effects along with the symbols that go-along with them so new players can familiarize themselves with the status effects as they go. A few of our current iterations are below:

Royal Pains

Just because Vashti and Desmond work for Queen Venezia and her right-hand general, Wulff, doesn't mean they always have to like it. The Queen has been acting erratically of late, and ever since the King has fallen ill, rumor has it that Wulff and Venezia have been a little too chummy.

So we've been focusing on our Royal Pains, fleshing out their animations and prepping them for all the drama that's unfolding in Dantalion, starting with Wulff:

And of course, our regal lady, Queen Venezia, can't be bothered to sit on her royal bum all day. Last we heard she's been pacing around the castle, anxious about something. Perhaps it's her new animations and portrait? Or maybe something more sinister....

As always, we're plugging away and creating some unique character animations as well for our classes, fleshing out alternative attack patterns and exceptions to the normal play style, as with our Cavalier classes two-handed strike and shield block:

Oh wait... and that desert looks vaguely familiar. That's right, Becca's got some more assets added like those below, so Seco Desert is ready for fighting!

Until Next Time, Stay Cool!

It's starting to warm up out there for the summer, so as the desert heat sets in everyone stay safe and well refreshed! Kick your feet up in the air conditioning and in your free time, if you're anything like me, take a quick breather with your Switch.

Because Vashti and Desmond may be stuck in the desert, but that doesn't mean we have to be!